The present invention relates to converting documents; in particular, though not exclusively, the present invention relates to converting documents complying with a CEN-XFS standard.
The CEN-XFS standard is well known in the financial services field. CEN-XFS provides a common API for accessing and manipulating various devices (such as Automated Teller Machine (ATM) devices) regardless of the vendor of those devices. This allows a single application to run in a multi-vendor hardware environment, which is useful for ATMs because these typically include a plurality of devices, such as card readers and printers, which may be supplied by different vendors.
Devices in an ATM are controlled by XFS service providers, which are software components that comply with the CEN-XFS standard and that are supplied by the vendor of that device or the vendor of the ATM including that device. Each service provider provides a CEN-XFS interface that is uniform for that type of device.
An application executing on an ATM (for example, a supervisor application that supports diagnostic, maintenance, and replenishment operations) can display or print information using documents that provide text and location attributes for the display or printer. These documents, also referred to as “XFS Forms”, comply with the CEN-XFS standard, see “CWA 14050—Extensions for Financial Services (XFS) interface specification—Release 3.03”, in particular, “Part 3: Printer Device Class Interface”, and “Part 9: Text Terminal Unit Device Class Interface”. FIG. 1 shows the format of a CEN-XFS Form 10.
To display information, for example on a rear operator panel, an ATM application sends a display request and a pointer to a display document (Form). The service provider for the rear operator panel receives the request and accesses the display document. The service provider then parses the display document and renders the information contained in the display document using the attributes provided by the display document.
Although these documents comply with this XFS standard, different vendors have different interpretations of this standard. As a result, a document prepared by one vendor may not be correctly parsed by a service provider supplied by a different vendor. If the service provider cannot parse a document, the document is not displayed (or printed, in the case of a print request).
There is therefore a need to ensure compatibility between documents provided by one vendor and service providers supplied by a different vendor.